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He had the unlucky capacity many men have of seeing and believing in the possibility of goodness and truth, but of seeing the evil and falsehood of life too clearly to take any serious part in it.

Leo Tolstoy

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Leo Tolstoy
Age: 82 †
Born: 1828
Born: January 1
Died: 1910
Died: January 1
Diarist
Esperantist
Essayist
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Pedagogue
Philosopher
Playwright
Prosaist
Writer
Tolstoi
Tolstoy
Lev Nikolaevich
graf Tolstoĭ
Lev Nikolayevich
Count Tolstoy
Count Lev Tolstoy
Leo
graf Tolstoy
Lev
Count Tolstoy
Lev
graf Tolsztoj
Лев Николаевич
c граф Толстой
Lew
graf Tolstoi
Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy
Lev Tolstoy
Count Leo Tolstoy
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Believing
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Clearly

More quotes by Leo Tolstoy

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Suddenly I heard the words of Christ and understood them, and life and death ceased to seem to me evil, and instead of despair I experienced happiness and the joy of life undisturbed by death.
Leo Tolstoy
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All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.
Leo Tolstoy
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One may say with one's lips: “I believe that the world was created six thousand years ago” or, “I believe that Jesus flew away into the skies and is sitting on the right hand of the Father” or, “God is One, and also Three” — but no one can believe it, because the words have no sense.
Leo Tolstoy
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If you do not know your place in the world and the meaning of your life, you should know there is something to blame and it is not the social system, or your intellect, but the way in which you have directed your intellect.
Leo Tolstoy
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Everything depends on upbringing.
Leo Tolstoy
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Every time I tried to express my most heartfelt desires to be morally good I met with contempt and ridicule and as soon as I would give in to vile passions I was praised and encouraged. Ambition, love of power, self-interest, lechery, pride, anger, vengeance-all of it was highly esteemed.
Leo Tolstoy
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Each person's task in life is to become an increasingly better person.
Leo Tolstoy
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There is nothing more harmful to you than improving only your material, animal side of life. There is nothing more beneficial, both for you and for others, than activity directed to the improvement of your soul.
Leo Tolstoy
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In spite of death, he felt the need of life and love. He felt that love saved him from despair, and that this love, under the menace of despair, had become still stronger and purer. The one mystery of death, still unsolved, had scarcely passed before his eyes, when another mystery had arisen, as insoluble, urging him to love and to life.
Leo Tolstoy
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Every reform by violence is to be deprecated, because it does little to correct the evil while men remain as they are, and because wisdom has no need of violence.
Leo Tolstoy
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To speak of it would be giving importance to that which has none.
Leo Tolstoy
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Love does not exist. There exists the physical need for intercourse, and the rational need for a mate in life
Leo Tolstoy
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Today, nobody sees, or wishes to see, that in our time the enslavement of the majority of men is based on money taxes, levied on land and otherwise, which are collected by government from the subjects.
Leo Tolstoy
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Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.
Leo Tolstoy
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And for him, who lived in a certain circle, and who required some mental activity such as usually develops with maturity, having views was as necessary as having a hat.
Leo Tolstoy
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People of limited intelligence are fond of talking about these days, imagining that they have discovered and appraised the peculiarities of these days and that human nature changes with the times.
Leo Tolstoy
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Religion reveals the meaning of life, and science only applies this meaning to the course of circumstances.
Leo Tolstoy
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Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity.
Leo Tolstoy
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Let us forgive each other - only then will we live in peace.
Leo Tolstoy
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One can often hear from the young people: I do not want to live according to others` mind. I can think of it myself. Why should one think of something, when it is already thought about. Take it and go farther, this is the strength of the mankind.
Leo Tolstoy